Three leading news broadcasters, which were issued show cause notices by the government over their coverage of the Yakub Memon hanging incident, have defended their programmes saying these were according to the norms and did not violate any rules. 

USAID chief Alfonso Lenhardt is visiting India this week to attend a global conference of health ministers and practitioners on child and maternal deaths and launch the premiere of a film on girl's education. 

They grew up together, fought off an attacker together and accepted a nation's honour together.Three days after they pounced and subdued a gunman aboard a packed train, American childhood friends Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos got the Legion of Honor -- France's highest recognition.

The Islamic State group has blown up a famed temple in Syria's ancient Palmyra, in an act the UN condemned as a war crime and an "immense loss" for humanity. 

With an average two Indian restaurants in the UK being forced to close down every week due to shortage of curry chefs, their owners have called on Prime Minister David Cameron to introduce short-term work visas to help them source cooks. 

Missile Complex Hyderabad which comprises Defence Research and Development Laboratory, the Advanced Systems Laboratory and the Research Centre Imarat will soon be renamed as 'Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Missile Complex', official sources said today. 

With onion prices touching Rs 80 a kg, the Delhi government today said that it will ask big traders of onions to import the kitchen staple in large quantity so that their price could be stabilised in the national capital.

Development Minister Gopal Rai and Food and Supplies Minister Asim Ahmed Khan held a review meeting with the traders of Azadpur vegetable market to discuss the situation.

Slamming the Centre, Rai said that they are busy in playing "a blame game of letter" and are putting a blame on the Delhi government for price rise of onion. "There are several big traders of onions who import the kitchen staple from other countries. The government has decided to approach them and request them to buy onions in large quantity so that their price could be brought down in the market," Rai told reporter.

The development minister said that in the review meeting, "traders told us that the price of onion has gone down by Rs 3 to Rs 5 in markets in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and we will get to see the impact in next three-four days in the city's markets.

"There is no shortage of stock of onion in Azadpur market. We hope that the price of onions will go down drastically in wholesale markets in Delhi," he said.

The Delhi high court today pulled up  All India Institute of Medical Science forensic department head Sudhir Kumar Gupta for not serving the copy of his reply to the institute and other parties, observing that he was trying to "delay" the proceedings on a plea seeking his replacement.

"Counsel for petitioner (AIIMS) says that he has not received the copy of reply which has been filed by the respondent (Gupta). It has been found that copy of reply was posted at the address of AIIMS, which appears to be a delaying tactics on the part of respondent," a bench of Justices G S Sistani and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said.

During the brief hearing, Gupta who had earlier alleged discrimination after he claimed to have refused to act unprofessionally in the Sunanda Pushkar autopsy matter, said the way his replacement was being sought by AIIMS was not justified.

"Earlier, the convention adopted by the institute in replacing the head of a department was that either the incumbent was unavailable or he or she resigns from the post, only in those cases a new person was appointed," Gupta's counsel Senior Advocate Amarendra Sharan said.

To this, the bench observed, "you can't continue to be a head of department forever."

The counsel then alleged that Dr D N Bhardwaj, whose appointment as the new head of the forensic medicine and toxicology department is being sought by AIIMS, is not a competent person to hold the post.

"He (Bhardwaj) has Parkinson's disease and he is the person who has left a bullet during an autopsy of victim in a Ponty Chadha case," Sharan alleged, adding that Bhardwaj does not deserve to be the head of a department.

BJP may take action against MP Shatrughan Sinha after Bihar assembly elections, say reports. Sinha has become an almost-open rebel by meeting with Nitish Kumar even as the PM strongly attacked the Bihar chief minister. Then when Modi attacked the chief minister personally, even questioning his DNA, Sinha said such bitterness could have been avoided.

So bad are the relations between Shatrughan Sinha and his party that he was not even invited to the prime ministers rally in Muzaffarpur.

Reuters reports: U.S. stocks extend fall - Nasdaq down 8.42%, Dow Jones 3.25%, S&P 500 down 3.42% 

Just in: Nasdaq opens 8 per cent lower. The US stock index futures screamed lower on Monday, with Dow futures tumbling more than 700 points, as fears surrounding the health of China's economy multiplied.

CNBC reports that the The New York Stock Exchange is invoking Rule 48 for the Monday stock market open, Dow Jones reported. The rule allows NYSE to open stocks without indications. "It was set up for situations like this," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderich Securities. It was last used in the financial crisis.

Just in: US market to open shortly, poised for a sharp self off due to China volatility.

Rishi Kapoor takes umbrage at being called Ranbir's Kapoor's parent.  @chintskap  tweets: IE entertainment. What do you mean by Ranbirs parents? We have our own identity and she is Neetu Kapoor. Such inaccurate reporting by IE.

The Indian Express tweeted: "Ranbirs parents @chintskap - Neetu Singh holiday with grandmother." And shared this link

National Investigation Agency sources have confirmed that they are likely to make more arrests in connection with the recent Udhampur terror strike case.


NIA sources told ANI on condition of anonymity that people who had given shelter to captured Pakistani terrorist Naved have been identified, and arrests would be made.


The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday took over the case of yesterday's Udhampur terror strike, with India saying that the attack was aimed at derailing peace in Jammu and Kashmir.


In the Udhampur attack, two heavily-armed terrorists believed to be from Pakistan ambushed a convoy of BSF personnel and opened fire. Two BSF constables and a militant were killed. Naved was caught alive in a manner identical to the nabbing of 26/11 attacker Ajmal Kasab.

ANI reports that OROP protester and army veteran Col Pushpender Singh (Retd) on hunger strike refuses to be taken to hospital, has joined Jantar Mantar protests again. Havildar Tej Singh has meanwhile replaced Col Pushpender Singh. The fasts are being run on relay.

Just in: War veteran Col Pushpender Singh (Retd) who has been on a hunger strike for eight days has been rushed to hospital. Col Singh (Retd) and Haviladar Major Singh (Retd) are on a fast unto death from August 16, protesting against the delay in the implementation of the long-pending One Rank One Pension scheme.


In his independence speech Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not given a specific timeline for the implementation of OROP and only said that talks were in the final stages, drawing sharp reactions from ex-servicemen who vowed to step up their protest.


Ex-servicemen have been holding a protest at Jantar Mantar and in other parts of the country for over two months demanding early implementation of OROP.


Close to 22 lakh ex-servicemen and over six lakh war widows stand to be immediate beneficiaries of the scheme, which envisages a uniform pension for the defence personnel who retire in the same rank with the same length of service, irrespective of their date of retirement.


Pic: Col Singh (wearing a cap) at the protest site at Jantar Mantar

Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Naved Yakub, who is believed to be a part of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, will make a confessional statement before a magistrate in Jammu on Wednesday regarding the role of the terror outfit in carrying out strikes like the one at Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir, where two BSF jawans were killed.


Naved, in his early 20s, was produced before a Special NIA court in Jammu today amid tight security and later taken to Chief Judicial Magistrate where the investigating agency informed that the accused was willing to give a confessional statement.


Naved along with his accomplice Mohammed Noman had carried out a terror strike on a BSF convoy on August 5. Noman was killed in retaliatory fire while Naved was nabbed by villagers who he had taken hostage. 

Political parties must not be brought under RTI or Right to Information Act as they are not public authorities, the Centre told the Supreme Court today.

This comes in the aftermath of a petition filed by the government which argued that political parties are not "public authorities" as they are not set up under the Constitution or any law enacted by Parliament and therefore can't be treated as an institution or establishment.


"If political parties come under the RTI it will affect their smooth internal functioning. Political rivals will file RTI applications with malicious intent,"  the government said.


A petition by an NGO had said that political parties should be declared "public authorities" to bring them under the RTI Act.  The petition also urged the court to ask political parties to declare all donations, including those below Rs. 20,000.

People who gave shelter to nabbed terrorist Naved have been identified, more arrests likely: NIA.

The Delhi pervert who's photo was posed online by a gutsy woman has been arrested. A young student in Delhi has filed an FIR that a man abused her on the road and then challenged her to complain against him after posing for her mobile phone camera.  

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday sought to assuage fears in the economy over the large-scale sell-off in the stock markets and the fall in the rupee by saying that these are simply reactions to external events, and that there was no internal cause for these shocks.


"Three different external causes -- the situation in Europe, the uncertainty surrounding the Fed rate cut, and China's Yuan devaluation -- have affected Indian markets," the Finance Minister said while speaking at the inaugural session of the Annual Conference of the Chief Commissioners and Directors General of Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax.


The markets will settle down soon, Jaitley added, maintaining that these are transient and temporary effects and that the government and the Reserve Bank of India were watching the situation closely, reports the Hindu.


The Sensex has so far plunged more than 1,700 points on Monday, while the rupee sank below 67 to the dollar.

Italian marines case: A UN panel asks Italy and India to submit a report by September 24. The tribunal suspends all proceedings in the marines case and asks India and Italy to submit a report by September 24.


The UN tribunal is hearing Italy's plea that two of its marines accused of killing Indian fishermen in 2012 should be handed over by India and tried in their own country. The UN tribunal has not responded to Italy's plea.


Italy has based its appeal on a UN law that grants jurisdiction in such cases to the country that owns the ship involved in any incident at sea. The country has asked the International Tribunal on Law of the Sea to restrict India from taking action against its marines.


The marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, who were on board the oil tanker "Enrica Lexie", are accused of killing two unarmed Indian fishermen off the Kerala coast on February 15, 2012. Italy maintains that the shooting took place in international waters and that the fishermen were mistaken for pirates.

PM Narendra Modi spends at least 30 minutes every day on planning the Bihar campaign with the top three stalwarts of the BJP -- Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley and Dharmendra Pradhan. An insider at 7 Race Course Road confirmed that at 10:30 am every day, Modi holds a meeting to get feedback on Bihar, which keeps many BJP senior leaders on tenterhooks. This morning, Modi held a discussion with Amit Shah about the next round of rallies in the interiors of Bihar. Modi collects data for his speech in the rallies, even slogans, posters and banners are first seen by the PM and then given the go ahead.

Though the top leadership of the Congress and the BJP are being coy over making calling each other over GST, senior Congress leader Anand Sharma and finance minister Arun Jaitley recently had an hour-long meeting to sort out the differences on the approach of GST. As leader of the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley took a stand that GST is the baby of BJP and Congress  supported it. But to ensure the Congress gets its moment in the sun, the BJP wants to add one or two concerns of the Congress.  

The Supreme Court directs the CBI to take over all Vyapam cases in three weeks. This comes after the CBI today filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court regarding the Vyapam investigations and sought three more weeks to take handover of all cases. The CBI also sought three weeks to engage special CBI prosecutors in these cases and requested the SC to allow Madhya Pradesh Government's public prosecutors to continue until then, so that the routine hearings of the cases don't get affected.


As per the CBI, 212 cases of the Vyapam cases are identified till now, out of which 119 cases are yet to be investigated and charge sheets are to be filed. CBI also sought clarification that whether it had to take over the 119 pending cases or all 212 cases including charge sheeted ones.

Senior Congress leaders want the government to take the initiative
to speak to party president Sonia Gandhi on the convening of a special session of Parliament to pass the GST Bill. Without the Congress support the constitutional amendment cannot be passed in both houses since it requires a 2/3 majority and 50 per cent of the MPs in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha should be present when it is being passed. The question being asked is whether PM Narendra Modi will take the soft line approach when the Opposition insulted him on the floor of both houses. For 10 years the Congress has been targetting Modi when he was Gujarat CM. Sources say Modi will not speak to Sonia. 

A young student in Delhi has alleged that a man abused her on the road and then challenged her to complain against him after posing for her mobile phone camera. Worse than the man's comments, says Jasleen Kaur, was the fact that at a busy intersection in the capital, no one helped.


NDTV reports that the police have registered a complaint of sexual harassment and will give her a Rs. 5,000 reward for being brave. The man, they say, has been traced through his bike details but is missing.


The biker's picture has been widely circulated on social media; it has been liked by 75 people and has over 14,500 shares since it was posted on Sunday night.


"A man made obscene comments on me today at around 8 pm near Aggarwal, Tilak Nagar. He was on a silver Royal Enfield, vehicle number - DL 4S CE 3623. When I told him that im clicking his picture and i'm going to file a complaint against him, he responded by posing for the picture and said- "Jo kar sakti hai kar le. Complaint karke dikha, fir dekhiyo kya karta hun main (Do whatever you like. Complain and see what I do then)," Jasleen says in her Facebook post.

She says what disturbed her "more than his obscene remarks" was that at a traffic signal, "20 other people heard what he was saying and no one minded, no one intervened. No one stood up for me."


Speaking to NDTV, Jasleen said she was trying to cross the road when she came in front of the bike. "When pointed at the red signal and said he should stop, he started making obscene remarks," Jasleen said. She admits that her parents are very scared about his threat.


"But If I hide my face, he wins. He should be ashamed and he should hide his face," she said.


Pic: The woman clicked this picture of the pervert who in fact posed for it.

Just in: A MiG 21 IAF plane crashes in Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir. Pilots ejects safely.

The aircraft had taken off from the Srinagar airfield and was on a "routine" training sortie.

Defence Spokesman Colonel S D Goswami told PTI that "A MiG-21 Bison of IAF crashed in Soibugh area of Budgam district at around 10.59 am, but there was no loss of life reported in the incident."

The pilot managed to eject from the plane "just in time" and he was retrieved from the crash scene by an army helicopter.

A court of inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the crash, the spokesman added.


Pic: First visuals from the accident spot.

A gooseberry-sized diamond thought to be worth Rs 50 crore has disappeared from Panna, triggering whodunit theories in the Madhya Pradesh district known for its precious stones. Read more

After a brief lull, Pakistani troops violated ceasefire again by resorting to firing and mortar shelling on forward posts and civilian areas in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.


There have been 52 violations of the border ceasefire agreement of 2003 by Pakistan in August and over 245 ceasefire violations this year so far. Pakistan on Sunday resorted to firing of automatic weapons and shelling of 60 mm mortar bombs on the forward posts and civilian areas from 19:00 hours to 19:20 hours in Balakote area, a defence spokesman said.


Army troops guarding the border, effectively and appropriately fired back, the spokesman said. The fresh ceasefire violation has occurred after a few days of lull along LoC in Poonch district.


On August 19, Pakistan Rangers resorted to three rounds of firing on a BoP along IB in Samba sector around 22:30 hours without any casualty or injury to anyone.

The Aam Aadmi Party is described by its critics as a populist party. The term 'populist' doesn't help you place a party on the Left-Right spectrum. In a world where Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn are both described as populist, the only thing the term tells you is that the person or party described by it claims to speak for the common man, to be the voice of the people, vox populi. Read more

Swaggering in the desert and glowering menacingly at the camera, Islamic State terrorist group's infamous executioner Jihadi John has in a newly released video vowed to return to Britain and carry on cutting off heads.


In a one-minute 17-second video, the knife-wielding fanatic, Mohammed Emwazi, who has taken part in the gruesome beheadings of at least seven hostages in Syria, including two Britons, vows to continue "cutting heads".


According to a report in London-based Daily Mail, 27-year-old Emwazi promises a triumphant return to Britain with the terror group's self-styled leader.


Emwazi, who was last seen in a sickening IS video at the end of January, beheading Japanese hostage Kenji Goto, was identified in February as 27-year-old Londoner Mohammed Emwazi.


In an eight-second excerpt obtained by Daily Mail, the camera pans away from a flatbed truck upon which a grenade-launcher was mounted to reveal a hooded Emwazi in profile.


Swathed in black and wearing a cap under his hood, he then turns and stares directly into the lens before looking away to scan the desert. Emwazi, christened Jihadi John by western media, can be heard clearly saying in a British accent: "I will carry on cutting heads."


A seven-second-long snippet of the full video has been released by British media, but the Daily Mail website claims to have spoken to a Free Syrian Army (FSA) member who had seen the whole one-minute 17-second video.


"I am Mohammed Emwazi, I will soon go back to Britain... and carry on cutting heads," the FSA member cited Emwazi as saying. Emwazi has appeared in seven videos released by IS since August 2014, when he beheaded US journalist James Foley. In September 2014, he appeared in a video showing the beheading of US journalist Steve Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines.


Picture credit: Daily Mail

The failure of India and Pakistan to hold the planned meeting between their National Security Advisers, as was agreed in Ufa six weeks ago, is unfortunate, indeed disquieting. It should give pause to both Islamabad and New Delhi on what kind of relations they could possibly expect to have in the foreseeable future. Read more

Indian equities nose-dived more than 3 per cent today tracking massive sell-off in global markets as the benchmark BSE Sensex plunged by more than 1,055 points, while NSE Nifty fell by 334.55 points in late morning deals.


The Sensex was quoted at 26,311.05, down 1,055 points at 1045 hours as against Friday's close of 27,366.07. The market expected to remain volatile in the near future as traders roll over their positions in the futures & options (F&O) segment from the near month August series to September.


The near month derivatives is set to expire on Thursday. The 50-share Nifty also dropped by 334.55 points or 4.03 per cent to 7,965.40 at 1045 hrs.

The government's 10 per cent stake sale in Indian Oil Corp kicked off today with some demand coming in from retail investors in initial trade amid hefty sell-off in broader market.


The government is looking to raise about Rs 9,302 crore from sale of 24.28 crore shares in IOC through a one-day OFS route at a floor or minimum price of Rs 387 apiece.


The IOC share sale is the fourth disinvestment this fiscal but the biggest in 2015-16 so far. The sale, which began at 0915 hours, received some subscription from the retail investors, who are also getting 5 per cent price discount. As against 4.85 crore shares reserved for them, bids for over 2.86 lakh shares came in at 1025 hours as per the stock exchange data.